Update: Sprint also sent me a $100 gift card and I may get my AAA membership covered for a year!
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, I’m going against my advice of buying used. It is true, but Sprint was running a deal that got me. They ran one previously, but I wasn’t able to take advantage of it and spent way too much time trying. Currently we have a phone on Freedompop for $2.49 a month and one on Simple Mobile for $23 a month.
The deal
Sprint had a deal where they would pay $41.67 toward the phone for 18 months if you trade in an iPhone 7 or newer. That is worth $750 off, but it requires switching to Sprint.
So, the first step was to get an eligible phone for trade-in, I found the device on Facebook Marketplace for $250. Then, I went to Sprint.com to sign up, but I clicked through a cashback portal which gave me $80 to sign up. I also preregistered with American Airlines to get 20,000 miles, worth $200, for signing up for a Sprint account. Then I filled out the required info and waited a week for them to ship the phone. The new plan is Sprint’s cheapest at $40. So for the life of the plan we have to shell out an extra $20 a month.
Putting the numbers together: $1000 + $250 – $750 – $80 – $200 + $360 = $580 for the phone. Actually $680 because we got the Max which was $100 more. I think paying this much for a phone is still too much, but a 35% discount is definitely better than nothing. I sold my wife’s iPhone 7 Plus for $300 after eBay fees, so it was like paying $380 to upgrade her phone. I think this is more reasonable as the price difference between the two phones in 18 months will probably be more than that amount. So for the next 18 months you probably won’t hear any new phone stories as we are stuck with Sprint and Freedompop.